On Fire
by K. East
Summary: I trust you," she says. "I swore to James I wouldn't pick sides, but I guess if it came down to it, I'd pick you." This makes Remus feel sick to his stomach. "Has James picked Sirius, then?" - with the song by Switchfoot.


**On Fire**

_They tell you where you need to go_

_Tell you when you need to leave_

_They tell you what you need to know_

_Tell you who you need to be_

Maybe when he sees her smiling up at his best friend, that's when it starts. Maybe when she twists expertly out of James's arms, gives him a kiss on the cheek, and says she'll leave him to the party, _that's_ when it starts. Maybe. Remus can't say for certain.

It could be when he gets up and follows her out, raising eyebrows except not on James- beautiful, trusting James- who merely watches them go with a smile and then raises his champagne glass instead, addressing their guests.

It never occurs to Remus that leaving a party is rude, that traipsing uninvited around someone else's house is ruder. The little home is practically his own, anyway; he's there that much.

He finds Lily standing in the master bedroom with her arms crossed over her chest, looking at – not out – the window. He clears his throat, and she turns around.

"Oh. Remus," she says, deflating slightly. He wonders if she was expecting someone else. Then he winces. Of course she was expecting someone else.

"Are you okay?" he asks immediately, closing the door behind him. The party downstairs is muffled. There is laughing, mostly Sirius's. She smiles vaguely.

"Of course I am," she says.

She's a terrible liar.

Remus doesn't move any closer. Instead he sits on the very edge of a chair that is standing, unused, in the corner. The arrangement of furniture is questionable; boxes still lie unopened against the wall.

"I'm okay, too," he says pointedly. He waits.

Lily shrugs, but she appears discomfited. "I was just feeling a bit suffocated, that's all. Just moving in, and having all these people over- to be perfectly honest, I don't care much for half the people out there."

He blinks. Surprised. _The people out there_ are friends from school, people they have all known for years- people he assumed she must get along well with.

"It's so easy to move on, you know?" She turns back to the window. "There are just so many people who have caused me stress over the years, and I have so little _concern_ for them I think sometimes it would be easier to let them go then to try and maintain the friendship." She looks at him. "That's awful. I'm sorry. You didn't want to hear that."

Remus shrugs, his eyes not leaving hers. "I can relate."

She comes over to him and, because he is occupying the only orphan chair in the room, sits gingerly on the edge of a cardboard box marked _James's Clothes_. He tries to avert his eyes. There is something on her face he doesn't understand.

"Do you ever feel – suffocated – by us? Me and Peter and Sirius and – James?" he asks quietly.

She shakes her head. "Not by you. You guys… are forever. I get that. James, he's forever." She waves a hand at the room in such disarray, neglected in favor of the housewarming party. "I guess I just haven't gotten used to the idea."

"That doesn't bother you?"

Lily smiles weakly. "Why d'you think I'm in here instead of out there?"

Maybe that's when it starts. His loving her, to be specific.

Maybe.

_But everything inside you knows there's more than what you've heard_

_There so much more than empty conversations filled with empty words_

"I need a profile on Fenwick. Apparently gone AWOL," she snaps, entering the room. It is immediately silent, not that there was much noise before- Sirius and Remus and James and Peter. Talking. Just talking, in low murmurs, at headquarters until she came in and realized that _they_ were the only ones there, that _they_ were in charge for once.

"Absent without leave, huh?" Sirius stands and languidly moves toward a filing cabinet that sits innocently in the corner. It's the only one to be had in this dingy little apartment on 2nd avenue. It also holds almost nothing in concerns to their work, but everything on the members themselves.

Information concerning Dark activity is strictly secret. Information on "the good guys" is crucial to exculpate them as double-crossers.

"Why d'you need his profile?"' Sirius asks, rifling through some manila folders. "You know enough about him as it is."

"Moody asked, and he's in a hurry," Lily shoots back, clearly not in the mood for discussion. "It could be serious. I need to know his security question, aliases, favorite locations- thanks."

Sirius is holding out a file, giving her an exasperated look. She snatches it from his hand.

"Impatient woman," he mutters, seating himself.

"Shut up, Padfoot," James says off-handedly, standing. He puts a hand on Lily's waist and the couple exchanges a look that no one else can decipher, before exiting together. James is mumbling something in Lily's ear. She smiles.

Remus watches them go.

"Why do we have all that information lying about?" Peter asks quietly, looking at the filing cabinet with an odd expression. He appears almost anxious.

"We always have. Didn't you know?" Sirius looks at Remus and adds very softly, "Very well-protected. Only Moody and Dumbledore can access it normally- but I'm the delegate for today."

Remus can barely keep down the bile threatening to sour his throat. He wrenches himself from his chair and leaves the room, his mind panicking about Sirius's new access to confidential information. But his heart is elsewhere.

It always seems like words have double meanings.

But among people he loves, and, up until recently, trusts-

- he doesn't know what to make of that.

_And you're on fire when he's near you_

_You're on fire when he speaks_

_You're on fire burning at these mysteries_

_They give me one more time around_

_Give me on more chance to see_

_Give me everything you are_

_Give me one more chance to be near you_

"I'm not the spy, Sirius," Remus says, his heart pounding wildly. Sirius circles him. They are like two territorial canines with necks bristling, hackles raised, about to brawl, except he feels so painfully out-matched he cannot even say.

"There are- things being said that not even Dumbledore would know," the other man- boy, really- growls. The room reverberates with his words, empty and dark- maybe like Sirius himself, Remus thinks.

He tries to battle down his fear.

"They know James is an Animagus. A _Marauder_ secret," Sirius says, and he spits out the word "Marauder" like it has an acerbic taste on his tongue. Remus can't help but take notice of this.

What has this war done to their brotherhood?

Was Sirius always like this, or did they lose him somewhere along the way?

"I think we both know why they know that," Remus says quietly, and Sirius stops moving. He forces himself to finish what he is saying. "Maybe- maybe it wasn't me. And if it wasn't, Sirius, and I _know_ it wasn't, then doesn't that make you the- well, the cruelest bastard here?"

Sirius barks with laughter. "Coward. Trying to turn the blame, then -"

"_You're_ the one who's turning the damn -"

"Remus?" A voice interjects. He falls silent. They turn. "Sirius?"

Lily is wide-eyed, startled. Of course. This isn't what she would expect to come home to. She closes the door and flips on a light. "I know I invited you over, but what are you guys doing?"

Sirius is stunned. Remus sees this and bitterly, painfully sees how good of an actor he is; but Remus himself is pretending that this- this confrontation doesn't happen at each of the rare moments he and Sirius are left alone; but it does, and every time they find themselves on the verge of snapping, someone interrupts.

"I have to go," he says quickly, seizing his cloak from a hook on the wall. He can feel Sirius's sneer on his back. He shivers, half out of disgust, half out of shame.

"No. Stay," Lily says, putting a hand on his arm. She looks up at him imploringly. "Please."

He hesitates.

Sirius sees this and scoffs. "Fuck, Remus, and now I see why."

Remus is afraid to contemplate what this means as his friend- no, ex-friend – leaves without another word. The door slams shut. He continues to look at Lily.

"I trust you," she says, dropping her hand to her side. "I swore to James I wouldn't pick sides, but I guess if it came down to it, I'd pick you."

This makes Remus feel sick to his stomach. "Has James picked Sirius, then?"

She looks down.

There is a beat of silence.

There is a beat of silence and Remus is tilting his chin in the air, trying to hold back the hot tears that, after years of hardship, finally threaten to emerge. He has lost everybody. He has lost Sirius. And James. And now it is down to Lily.

The tears come anyway.

_When everything inside me looks like everything I hate_

_You are the hope I have for change_

_You are the only chance I'll take_

_When I'm on fire when you're near me_

_I'm on fire when you speak_

_I'm on fire burning at these mysteries_

"He's g-gone," she half-blurts, holding onto Peter for dear life. "They don't know where he is, and he's -"

Remus watches silently as Peter hugs her tightly. She sobs quietly. The sound crashes on his ears, horrible and heart wrenching, and it takes all his strength to push his voice across the wretchedly soft noise- "I'm so sorry," he says, but his voice cracks and he finds himself shaking, too.

Peter turns his eyes toward him, pleading, and Remus moves forward and wraps his arms around her shoulders.

The three of them stand there for the longest time; Lily just cries and cries. And the two Marauders remain silent, for two very different reasons.

_Mysteries,_

It's been two days.

_Mysteries,_

The limit, Remus knows, is three days. Three days before a man is declared killed in action.

_You're on fire,_

And now is when Remus begins to doubt his first assumptions- because Sirius's grief is as real as it could seem and it is hard to place a motive for _that_. Because Sirius is suddenly drinking a lot more, and throwing himself into Order work, and this doesn't fit the profile of a traitor. Because James and Sirius were best friends for eight years, and that simply is not something a person can _fake_.

But then again, James and _Remus_ were supposed to be best friends, and if that were true, he certainly wouldn't be in his house right now, and he certainly wouldn't be experiencing this lightheadedness when he looks at James's fiancée.

"I appreciate your coming, Remus," she says, clutching a cup of tea with shaking hands. "I really do. I -"

She can't seem to finish this thought, whatever it is, and he quickly says, "That's what friends are for. Lily, you've always been there for _me_ when I- when I needed you -"

This is too much. She starts to cry anew.

Loving her has been difficult; it's a frank reality that Remus can admit, if only to himself. Loving her and not being able to have her, that is. But loving her and having that temptation there, the opportunity, and still not taking it?

If only Sirius could see him now.

Coward, indeed.

_I'm standing on the edge of me_

_I'm standing on the edge of everything I've never seen before_

_And I've been standing on the edge of me_

"James -"

"Oh, Merlin, I thought you'd given -"

"I would _never_ give up on you, James Potter, don't you even _imply_ such a thing. I love you so much and -"

Remus shuts the door behind him, buttoning his coat, bracing himself against the wind, and begins to walk away from the house in Godric's Hollow.

_Standing on the edge_

_And I'm on fire when you're near me_

_I'm on fire when you speak_

On his way through the village, he catches- in the corner of his eye- sight of the little graveyard. A heavy feeling settles in his chest-

_I'm on fire burning at these mysteries_

_These mysteries_

_You're a mystery_

- and it's fifteen years later, and it is snowing, and he is knelt at one of the graves. The stone is cold and ice seeps through the thin knees of his pants. But Remus doesn't care.

He closes his eyes, thinking of all the people he has lost, and lets the snowflakes brush his cheeks, much like the fleeting touch of Lily Potter's life. They melt away just as quickly.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This is a really old piece that I found, kinda liked, and finished up for you guys today. I hope you like it- and whether or not you did, please drop a line via the "Review" button down there. I'd really appreciate it. (By the way, if you don't have an account, anonymous reviews are cool too.)


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